It was not a typical trio of crime-fighters: a cellist, an author and a musicologist.

But on Sunday afternoon, Helen Gellet left her cello at home and joined writer Ken Foster and music professor Baty Landis to talk about crime in New Orleans and to plan a Thursday march on City Hall.

The meeting at Landis' coffeehouse, the Sound Cafe, was pulled together with only a few days' notice, largely in response to the slaying of two prominent artists a week apart -- band director and Hot 8 Brass Band drummer Dinerral Shavers on Dec. 28 and filmmaker Helen Hill on Thursday. Hill's husband, physician Paul Gailiunas, was shot three times in the attack at their home.

The location for the meeting was a natural. The coffeehouse between Faubourg Marigny and Bywater is a regular stop for Hot 8 members who perform there on Wednesday nights, and Hill frequently stopped at Landis' bookstore next door with her toddler son, Francis.

Each of the organizers took turns standing on a piano bench to address the crowd that spilled out of the cafe, and then audience members were given a chance to air their views.

"Where is our government, and what are they doing to address our basic needs?" asked Gellet, citing safety and shelter as needs left unaddressed.

The moderator, Bywater resident Amy Wilson, a clinical social worker, spoke about Operation Ceasefire, which she said was effective in addressing a soaring murder rate in Chicago in the late 1990s. Then she asked everyone to hold hands, then exhale and say: "Stop killing people."

Riley, Jordan, Nagin blasted

To loud applause, people called for the resignations of District Attorney Eddie Jordan and New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Warren Riley. They asked where Mayor Ray Nagin was, and why he wasn't providing the city with leadership at a time like this.

A high school teacher talked about how the drug dealers in her classroom had the lowest reading scores. A few people decried the city's criminal justice system and the lack of cooperation between the district attorney's office and the NOPD.

Not every suggestion met with applause. The woman who sent a note calling for the boycott of Mardi Gras 2007 met with the loudest round of boos; more boos followed a suggestion to place the city under a "state of emergency."

The idea of adding more police on the streets was more mixed -- it met with a few "no ways" and scattered claps. A man in a baseball cap then ticked off the list of those on duty in the city: National Guard, Louisiana State Police, Orleans Parish sheriffs' deputies, NOPD.

"We have the highest ratio of police to citizens in America -- we have plenty of cops," he said. "What we don't have is management."

Organizers said citizens must address the root causes of violent crime.

"This is a big public show that we've come together and we want change," Foster said. "But obviously a lot more work needs to happen."

'Beyond platitudes'

Audience members were asked to work on specific policy demands for city officials. "We want to get beyond the platitudes," Landis said.

Some in the audience hailed the memory of those fallen. Elizabeth Cook talked about Gailiunas, his charity work for patients like herself and his devotion -- with Hill -- to causes like Food Not Bombs.

"We must remember their legacy," she said. "We must address the needs of our low-income citizens. It is what they worked so hard for."

Ronald Lewis, a longtime community organizer from the Lower 9th Ward and president of a second-line club, said that the meeting became his priority after Shavers' funeral on Saturday, "when I had to stand out there and shed my tears as they carried Dinerral for the last time."

Racial makeup criticized

Eric Carter, an organizer for Common Ground, said he was heartened by the big turnout but discouraged that so many faces in the crowd were white.

"We've got all these people here," said Carter, who is African-American. "This isn't a sample of the community. We make up, what, 2 or 3 percent of this audience. It's all these white people in a room talking."

But Lewis, who is African-American, said he thinks the make-up of the audience was a good thing. "That's who needed to go to the meeting," he said. In black communities, he said, the problem has already hit home -- many times over. Now, it's hit home in mostly white communities as well, he said.

"Everybody done woke up," said Lewis, who predicted that Thursday's march would be more racially mixed than Sunday's meeting. Foster said the organizers had reached out to African-American ministers and their congregations, who were supportive of their efforts.

Inside, from the piano bench, Landis and Foster announced that marchers, including the remaining members of the Hot 8 Brass Band, would gather Thursday at 11 a.m. Thursday in front of the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, near the foot of Canal Street. Organizers expect to reach City Hall around noon, where marchers will be greeted by City Councilman James Carter, who also made an appearance at the coffeehouse.

Carter, who spearheaded a New Orleans crime summit with the council and Nagin's office in September, said he welcomed both the meeting and the march.

"This -- citizen activism -- is the most important part of the city's fight against crime," he said.

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Katy Reckdahl can be reached at kreckdahl@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3300.